a quest in three acts
by not a straight trumpet
Summary: Kumiko finds herself at a crossroads, finds herself speaking to three very different people.


**a/n: **hello! finale oath continues to upset me very much! this can be considered part 2 of a series i like to call "working the godawful canon into a commentary on internalized homophobia because i can't picture a world where kumiko willingly dates a man otherwise"

cw for one use of the d slur

* * *

i._ introduction_

Reina's eyes weren't actually purple.

They were blue - dark blue - but she wore contacts, sometimes, and on the days when she didn't Kumiko filled in the blanks in her head. That made sense to her, that Reina would be so ethereal down to her eyes.

Of course it was a bit ridiculous, but still. Kumiko thought like that anyway.

Her heart hurt, after all. It was normal for heartaching women to think like that, or so she rationalized; what else was there to do? _Not _wax poetic about Reina's white-blue dress, _not _think thoughts of a life well-enough lived after one night on a mountain?

It was raining, today, and she held a black umbrella in her left hand as she waited for the train. The drops fell off, sliding, making a pool at her feet. Her shoes were already soaked, her socks too thin to give any actual protection.

"You should get a better one," Reina said. Kumiko jumped.

"R-Reina! I, uh, didn't see you there." Uncomfortably, Kumiko twiddled her thumbs, waited for Reina to speak.

"It's true, then?"

"What?"

"You and Tsukamoto." Reina tucked her hands behind her back, her face betraying no emotion at all.

"Oh." Kumiko looked down at the ground, silently slid her umbrella over so that it covered Reina, too. "Who told you?"

"Nakagawa-senpai. She messaged me and called bullshit."

"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Kumiko balled her free hand into a fist, gnawed-down nails still biting into her palm.

"She said it wasn't her place to talk to you about it, but that I should say something." Reina looked her dead in the eye, then, stepping closer with a shuddering breath. Kumiko's heart flipped over. "Do you love him?"

"We're in high school, Reina, nobody's supposed to love anyone yet." A lie, and a blatant one at that - wasn't she the one who'd echoed Reina's confession back at her? "B-besides, we're not really dating, we're just . . ." Whatever was meant to come next died in her lungs.

"But you're not denying it, either." Reina took the umbrella from her hands, jerked it downwards. Kumiko stiffened at the sudden feeling of rain on her skin, cold and relentless, like a thousand million tiny bullets. She thought of his hands on her, saying things she was supposed to agree with, and shivered. "Kumiko, I've seen the flags in your room. You've shown them to me."

"It's j-just easier to go along with it," she mumbled. Reina put the umbrella back up. "The rest of the school doesn't need to know."

"Since when have you cared about them?" Reina's eyes were purple, so magnificently purple, in this lighting. She could not possibly be from this world, except she was, and she was angry, and Kumiko didn't know what to do about it.

"It's not easy for me to ignore it either, okay?! If this gets Hazuki and Midori and everyone off my back, t-that's okay, right? It's okay?"

"You sound like you're asking yourself."

"I'm wishy-washy, Reina, you know that, I'm . . . passive! I thought I'd gotten a backbone around Asuka-senpai but-" and then she paused, and the rain hit a lull for a moment. "-you don't get to tell me that. You're still hung up over Taki-sensei."

"You aren't happy, Kumiko." Reina stood a little while away, enough that the rain soaked her once again. The train wailed into the station. "That's all."

She stepped on before Kumiko could say anything else.

ii. _confrontation_

"Most girls would kill to get up here," Natsuki sighed, lounging on her bed as Kumiko sat cross-legged on the floor, the carpet scratching at her thighs. Idly, Natsuki poked around the inside of her own ear with her pinkie finger, rubbing what was left on her pant leg. Sometime in the spring she'd lopped off most of her hair, and she looked older - wiser, maybe, if nothing else more like she belonged in the rusty pickup truck sitting in her apartment building's parking lot, more like herself. "Still, you called, and one euph to another I figured-"

"Why'd you tell Reina?" Kumiko blurted out. Natsuki narrowed her eyes.

"All I said was I thought something was wrong. Christ, Kumiko, it's not like I outed ya. You know I'd never do that."

"I know."

"It just hurts too much to see ya . . . like this. Trapping yourself in a relationship that you're obviously miserable in."

"So?" Kumiko wouldn't look at her - the force in her gaze, the knowledge of what she could not - would not - say speaking in a deafening voice.

"And don't give me any 'you don't know how I feel' crap, just because I never dated boys doesn't mean I can't see that this isn't . . . right." Natsuki scooted closer, then, concern filling her gaze. "I'm not asking ya to come out. You're the only one who can make that choice, no matter how much it makes me sound like an after-school special to say it, but Kitauji's not exactly a hotbed of homophobia. It's not an American high school from the 90s where someone's gonna write _'DYKE' _on your locker. Nobody gives a shit if you're not dating anyone." She paused. "Even if you are dating someone, they've still got their own lives to worry about."

"Y-you know how I am." Romantic, lonely, _scared, _Natsuki didn't really know those things, but she knew enough.

"Gay?"

"Yeah." Kumiko pulled her knees to her chest, staring down at Natsuki's rug like it might swallow her whole. "I'm scared, Natsuki."

"Everyone's scared." Natsuki tipped her head upwards, at the ceiling hanging above her, and gingerly touched the back of her neck. "Doesn't mean ya should stuff down your real feelings for some dumb straight girl's idea of romance. Katou can't tell you what love is. Neither can I, but I'm trying." Laughing hoarsely, Natsuki put a hand to her face. "God, Kumiko, I'm trying."

"Natsuki . . ." Kumiko hitched her breath as if she was planning on saying something, but the words failed to follow. Natsuki just leaned back on the bed, the springs creaking beneath her.

"You'll be alright," she said, after a while. Kumiko blinked back the tears that had started dripping down her face.

"Y-yeah." She sniffled loudly enough to send Luce, Natsuki's cat, slinking away. "I hope so."

iii. _resolution_

It was over painlessly, really. They met on the bridge, because without her having any say in the matter he'd decided that was 'their spot,' and she spouted off something about focusing on music, on the band, on herself, and she'd handed back that godforsaken flower pin that always got tangled in her hair with as little of her hand touching his as she could manage.

It seemed to work. They ceased contact beyond what was needed at school, and sure, Kumiko missed having a friend around, but more than that she felt as though she could breathe again. She didn't have to rub her hand on her skirt when he wasn't looking, didn't have to get dolled up for dates she didn't care about, didn't have to squash down her discomfort into the furthest reaches of her gut.

It wasn't perfect, but what was? As soon as he walked out of sight, Kumiko found her mouth turning upwards into a smile, and as she cried a little at how heavy the world weighed on her she _laughed, _up to the clouds and the passerby, hand clamped over her face, chest a little lighter.

**Kumiko: hey reina**

**Kumiko: i'm okay**

* * *

**a/n:** we're just getting started


End file.
